Evil Agreement (5 page)

7

A shiny, black, 1994 Mercury Grand Marquis drove slowly down
the gravel driveway of the Washington County Animal Shelter. At the bottom of
the driveway, the car turned to the right and pulled to a stop behind a forest
green pickup truck. The side and back windows were darkly tinted. Only the
windshield was not tinted.

From the back porch came Ed, who was closely followed by
Walter. Ed Foley opened an umbrella. The warm summer rain had begun to fall
just moments before. As with most summer storms here in the Winooski
River Valley
area of Vermont, this storm was
sudden and the rain was heavy.

The two men stood silently next to the black Mercury. They
huddled under the umbrella. The only sound that was heard came from the
splatter of rain on the vehicles and the
tat, tat, tat
sound of the rain
striking the tarp in the back of
Yandow’s
truck. The
men shifted their feet. Not a word was spoken between them nor did they look at
one another. Instead their eyes were fixed upon the driver’s side front door
window.

Over five minutes passed since the car had arrived, and yet
there was no sign from within. The rain was now beginning to puddle around
their feet. A bright burst of light exploded behind them, which momentarily
cast an eerie frame to the backyard scene. It was a lightning strike, which hit
an old elm tree in the woods behind the Animal Shelter. The lightning exploded
upon the tree, blowing away a large limb from the upper third of the tree. The
loud
crack
from the exploding tree was almost immediately followed by a
huge concussion, which shook the ground. The earth-shaking thunderclap would
have caused almost anyone to jump. They continued to wait in silence.

A whirring sound softly emanated from the car as the driver’s
side window was powered down halfway. From inside the car’s darkened burgundy
leather interior spoke a raspy voice.

“I want to see them.”

“They’re in the back of the pickup truck under a tarp,” said
the veterinarian.

With a click followed by a louder click, the driver’s side
door was unlocked and now it began to open. Ed, who was holding the umbrella,
now held it over the open car door. Walter stood almost at attention. No longer
protected by the umbrella, he was quickly drenched by the heavy downpour. A
distant boom of thunder echoed about as a short balding man emerged from the
car. It was Reverend Simon B. Mitchell, pastor to the faithful of the town of Sutton’s
Church of Everlasting
Faith. He wore a neatly ironed black suit, beneath
which he wore a minister’s dark gray shirt with a white collar. This man, with
short gray hair at the temples, also sported a mustache and beard, neatly
trimmed and shaved so that they outlined his mouth and the edges of his jaw. He
had dark piercing eyes with crows feet age lines radiating from the corners.
His shoes were polished to a mirror like shine. He closed the door of the car
and then he too stood silently beside Ed Foley. As he stood there, he clasped
his hands behind his back, military style.

Walter, now completely soaked, stepped aside to allow Ed and
Reverend Mitchell to walk to the back of his truck. As they approached the back
of the truck, Walter stepped in front of the two other men and pulled the
handle of the tailgate. Walter hoisted himself up onto the tailgate by grabbing
the rear corner of the sidewall and pulling himself up. The front of the truck
was parked on a slight incline so the pickup truck bed tilted toward Ed and the
Reverend.

Tiny whitish gray flecks of brain tissue floated down the
truck bed upon the rivulets of rainwater. The channels in the truck bed
funneled the rainwater into a series of tiny rainfalls. As the rainwater fell
off the truck it struck the rear bumper, before cascading to the gravel
covered, rain soaked ground.

“The tarp, Mr.
Yandow
, the tarp if
you please,” said the Reverend in his usual demanding tone.

Walter always wanted to milk the moment. He was, at times,
almost theatrical in his manner around the Reverend. This Reverend suffered his
eccentric behavior with little patience. He would frequently scold “Mr.
Yandow
” as he was about to now.

“Mr.
Yandow
, have you not noticed
that it is raining? I don’t wish to stand out here all day, so let’s be done
with it.”

“Sure, Reverend, here they are,” said Walter as he pulled
back the tarp in one long powerful stroke.

The water, which covered the tarp, now flew at Ed and the
Reverend, soaking them both. Neither man flinched.

“Sorry, Reverend, Ed,” said Walter as he looked away as if to
avoid eye contact.

“I didn’t mean to...”

“Silence,” said the Reverend in a commanding voice.

The Reverend now moved to the right side of the truck to get
a closer look. He placed his hands on the truck’s sidewall and stood on his
tiptoes. Ed Foley stood next to him, holding the umbrella and not saying a
word.

“Turn her over,” said the Reverend.

Walter bent over and with his large powerful hands he grabbed
her by the legs and twisted them, causing her stiffening body to roll over. Her
backside was already turning a dark purple color from her shoulders down to her
buttocks as her body’s blood was settling and congealing inside her cold
lifeless body.

The Reverend stared at her naked body for a moment as the
rain splattered against her skin. Her eyes were wide open, frozen at that
moment the bullet entered her upper throat, the very same frozen moment that
she saw Sammy pointing a rifle at her.

“Now turn him over.”

The Game Warden repeated the process with the dead man. Again
the Reverend took a moment to examine the entire body of this victim as well.

“Have you gone through their things?”

“No, I haven’t had time yet.”

“All right, I’ve seen enough. Cover them up.”

Walter did as he was told, only this time with less flair.

The Reverend turned to Ed and looked up at him said, “You
know what to do. We’re counting on you, Ed. We are doing His work and through
His work we shall inherit the earth.”

Ed nodded his understanding.

“Mr.
Yandow
, I will expect a full
report on my desk by
eight o’clock
tomorrow morning. Leave nothing out, do you understand, and bring along their
personal effects?”

“Yes, Reverend.”

Ed spoke up for the first time since the Reverend’s arrival.
“What about an alibi, should we need one?”

“These were young hikers it seems. Their absence may not
become a concern for a few days. After I see Mr.
Yandow’s
report, I will set into motion a suitable cover story.”

The three men walked back to the car.

From the back porch, a soft voice addressed Reverend
Mitchell.

“Hello, Reverend Mitchell,” said Lisa Foley. She smiled at
the Reverend. She also offered a half wave with her right hand.

“Hello, Lisa and how are you today?”

“I’m fine Reverend, just fine.”

“That’s good, well I must be going now,” said the Reverend in
a softer tone as he smiled at Lisa and returned her wave.

With
that, Ed opened the Reverend’s door and held the umbrella over the Reverend as
he slid into the front seat of the car.

Ed turned to Walter and nodded in the direction of the two
small buildings set off from the house and the driveway. These particular wood
shake buildings stood alone. One served as a shelter for hard to handle
creatures that came into the possession of the Foley’s from time to time. The
other building was where the vet conducted his disposal of dead and unwanted
animals.

“I’ll get the bodies and bring them in, and then I’ve got to
leave,” said the game warden.

“I understand. Bring the guy in first, okay?”

“Sure.”

Ed folded up the umbrella and walked over to the porch. He
handed the umbrella to his daughter. The rain had lightened up.

“I’ll finish feeding the animals and cleaning out the cages
that need it. I know you’ve got work to do out back,” said Lisa.

“Thanks. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to an hour and a
half.”

“All right, I’ll have supper waiting.”

Ed turned and moved off in the direction of the disposal
building. Meanwhile, Walter climbed up into the back of the pickup truck. He
pulled back the tarp once again, uncovering the two bodies. Lisa remained on
the back porch just long enough to catch a glance of the two dead hiker’s
bodies.

Lisa headed back inside the back porch door of the clinic
into the operating room. Ed fumbled in his pants pocket for his keys. Finally
locating them, he unlocked the door of the disposal building and flipped on a
light switch. He quickly went over to a large stainless steel vat. Working the
controls, he flipped a couple of switches and turned a knob on the top of the
vat. The sound of a gas burner kicking into full operation filled the silence
of the room with a “swoosh” like sound.

At the disposal door stood Walter. He was carrying the body
of Michael
Delvecchio
over his shoulders.

“Put him on the table, right here,” said Ed pointing to a
stainless steel table. The table was six and one half feet long and thirty
inches wide. Its edges were rounded and raised. The entire table was sloped to
its center where a drain hole was located. Attached to the right end of this
table was a deep stainless steel work sink, industrial grade. Suspended over
the sink was an overhead radial saw.

Delvecchio’s
body was laid face up
on the table.

Ed began to remove the man’s hiking boots and socks. He
handed these to Walter, who turned and headed out the door.

From over his shoulder Walter said, “I’ll go and get the
girl. Be right back.”

“Okay, Walt.”

Ed reached under the table and pulled out a pair of rubber
gloves from a box marked “Large, For Surgical Use Only.”

He reached to the back wall of the table and flipped a
switch. The overhead radial saw’s small red power light blinked on. He reached
up and pulled the saw down until it was but inches from the corpse of Michael
Delvecchio
. He pulled on the saw’s trigger and the radial
blade began to spin at 3,000 rpm. Its high pitched sound filled the room. The
blade was centered over the right leg of the corpse, just above the knee. He
lowered the saw.

Outside, Walter pulled the lifeless body of Julia Brodsky
from the truck and laid her across his powerful left shoulder. With his right
hand free he closed the tailgate. As he turned towards the disposal building,
he could clearly hear the unmistakable sound of the radial saw. By the time he
reentered the building, both lower legs had been removed and Ed was busy moving
the body into a better position for the rest of the carving. Without saying a word,
Walter put Julia’s body on a wooden side table next to the door.

Walter closed the door as he left the disposal building.
Outside the door to the right, under a small overhead roof, stood several
wooden kegs stacked on top of wooden pallets. The kegs were labeled in heavy
black letters,
Bone Meal Fertilizer
.

8

Korie
stood next to the bar. It was
nearly
midnight
. The restaurant was
closing down for the night. The customer that had attracted her sympathy, “Mr.
Bond,” was now quite drunk. She had brought him some coffee earlier in an
effort to sober him up. He accepted the coffee and asked for the check. She
brought him his check, which he paid after fumbling around in his wallet. He
gave her a generous tip of thirty dollars. He had remained at his table for the
past hour staring out the window. He seemed so very sad.

“Hey,
Korie
, what’s with that guy?”
said Danny, the bartender. He also doubled as the shift leader for the
waitresses.

“I don’t really know.”

“Well, we’re closing. See if you can move him along. If he’s
too drunk to drive, we’ll call him a cab, but he’s got to go.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

Korie
walked over to Aaron’s table
and sat down. She tapped Aaron on the arm to get his attention and received no
response.

“Mr. Bond, please, we’re getting ready to close. Would you
like me to get you a cab?”

Aaron slowly turned towards her. He looked her straight in
the eye and whispered, “I’m not Mr. Bond. My name is Aaron.”

“Pleased to meet you, Aaron.”

Korie’s
heart began to pump a bit
faster now that she was speaking to him, face to face. She found him to be
quite handsome. Whatever was making him sad also made him seem so vulnerable.
She placed her left hand over his left hand. He didn’t pull away at her touch.
Their eyes were now locked upon one another.

“Is there something wrong, Aaron?”

“Yes,” he whispered as his eyes began to water up again.

“Uh, listen, why don’t I give you a lift home in my car and
you can take a cab back tomorrow to get your car? I really don’t think you
should be driving tonight.”

“Your name is
Korie
, that’s a
pretty name,” he said as he tried to force a smile.

“You wait here, I’ll be right back,” she said as she stood
up.

She headed to the bar and whispered something to the
bartender. He shook his head in obvious disagreement to whatever
Korie
was saying. Nevertheless, she quickly went into the
employee’s locker room and retrieved her coat and purse.

As she exited the locker room, she handed an envelope to the
bartender. “There’s the last of my tips for tonight. I’ll check back for my
share tomorrow, when I come in.”

“You be careful.”

“Thanks, you know I will. He just needs a lift home.”

“Uh-huh.”

Korie
slipped into her coat and
headed over to Aaron’s table. She helped him to his feet and guided him to the
front door. She had to struggle just to keep him up as he staggered between
tables and chairs. Soon the two of them were outside standing next to her seven
year old Honda Accord. She unlocked the passenger side door and helped him to sit
in the front seat. He made a most ungraceful effort at this otherwise ordinary
task. She had to lift his two legs and set them inside the car. She got into
the driver’s side and soon she was pulling out of the restaurant parking lot.
She never gave it a second thought. This Aaron just seemed like he needed more
from her than a ride home. It seemed to her that he needed a friend. She had
decided to take Aaron to her apartment and let him sleep on the couch for the
night. If he wanted to talk, that would be okay If he didn’t, that would be
fine too.

They drove silently to her apartment, which was just a couple
of miles from the restaurant. It was a small cottage that she rented from an
elderly couple who were both retired physicians. The cottage was set behind
their house, but it shared a view of the ocean. The rent was unusually cheap.
The elderly couple liked her a lot, and she appreciated their generosity. She
ran errands for them on her days off from the restaurant. But most of all, she
appreciated the fact that they didn’t try to pry into her private life. They
simply accepted her into their lives, and she would never do anything to hurt
their trust and affection for her. She worried that bringing this man to her
cottage apartment would upset them. She decided she would speak to them in the
morning and explain that she just couldn’t let this man go home alone. She felt
they would understand.

Korie
pulled her car to a stop
alongside her cottage. She pulled the emergency brake on and turned the engine
off. Aaron had fallen asleep during the short drive from the restaurant. He
would have never made it safely home alone. She got out of the car and went to
the passenger’s side of the car and opened the car door. She reached in and
unbuckled Aaron’s seat belt. He was breathing heavily.

She took his head in her hands and shook it back and forth.

“Aaron, Aaron, please wake up, you’re home.” He slowly opened
his eyes and looked at her and smiled a silly half-drunk smile.

“Home?”

“Yes, now let me help you get inside.”

With that, she pulled his right arm and his whole body slowly
followed along. He pulled his own legs out of car. She tugged at his arm. He
grabbed on to the car door as he helped himself to his feet. After closing the
car door, she led him to her front door.

“Hey, I don’t recognize this. This, this can’t be my place.”

“I know you are too drunk to drive, so I decided to bring you
to my place to spend the night. I hope you don’t think I’m out of line.”

“
Naw
,” said Aaron as he leaned
against the front outside wall of the house. His head was spinning. He tried to
hold his head with his hands, but as he tried to lift them they felt like they
weighed a hundred pounds each.

Korie
put her house key into the
front door deadbolt lock and unlocked the door. She opened the door and then
reached around the left inside of the door and flipped an inside wall switch,
turning on the foyer’s overhead light. Aaron squeezed his eyes shut in reaction
to the sudden brightness of the light.

“C’mon inside.”

Korie
took Aaron by the hand and
led him inside. With her right foot, she managed to softly kick the front door
shut. She led him into the kitchen first, where she had him sit at the table.
She turned the overhead light on for the stove, which was the softest light in
the kitchen. With his elbows on the table, Aaron buried his head into his
hands.

“Coffee?”

“Sure,” said Aaron.

Korie
proceeded to make a carafe of
coffee with her Mr. Coffee machine. She sat down at the table across from Aaron
as the coffee began to drip into the carafe. The aroma of freshly brewing
coffee filled the small kitchen. Nearly everything in this kitchen was white
with sunflower yellow accents.
Korie
stared at this
man she had brought home. As a young girl, she was always bringing home some
hurt or abandoned animal. She would take care of them with a level of attention
and affection that was uncompromising.

Korie
reached across the table and
pulled Aaron’s hands apart. Their eyes met once more. They looked at one
another for a short while.

“Aaron, what’s wrong? Is there anything I can do to help
you?”

Aaron, without saying a word reached into his coat pocket,
and pulled the papers out and placed them upon the white table top.

“My aunt, who raised me all my life, died this summer. I
didn’t know she had died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, thanks. Well, anyway, she named me in her will. So
today I went up to Boston and met
with her attorney, who is handling her estate,” said Aaron as he began to
sniffle.
Korie
handed him a napkin.

“
Pheeeze
,” as he blows his nose.

“Go on,” said
Korie
.

“Well, it seems that she left me a lot of money. In fact, she
left me everything.”

“She must have cared for you a lot?”

“You don’t know the half of it. I decided to come down to the
Cape and celebrate. That’s how I ended up at your
restaurant. This is some celebration, huh?

“Nothing wrong with that. Do you miss her, is that why you’ve
been so sad tonight?”

“Yes and no. It’s because of these papers the attorney gave
me,” he said as he poked his right index finger down on the papers.

“Go on, read them,” he said.

“Oh no, I shouldn’t, they’re yours, I mean they’re private,
meant just for you.”

“I want you to read them.”

“The coffee’s ready. Why don’t we have some coffee first?”
she said as she rose from the table. She really didn’t want to read these
personal papers from this man’s dead aunt.

She poured them both a large cup of coffee. She set his cup
down in front of him. She went to the refrigerator and came back to the table
with a carton of coffee creamer. She put that on the table and sat back down.

“There’s sugar and sweet and low in that bowl.”

He took two packets of sugar and tried to pour them into his
coffee. He spilled sugar all around the cup. He waved away the creamer when she
offered it to him. She mixed her own coffee.

“She wasn’t my aunt after all. She was my mother.”

“What?”

“Yeah, my mother. It’s all in here,” he said as he again
pointed to the papers lying on the table.

“
Korie
, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Please read them. It’s a letter from my mother and a copy of
my birth and baptism certificates. I want you to read them. Go on.”

He pushed the folded papers towards her. Reluctantly, she
picked them up. Her curiosity had been piqued. She unfolded the letter and
began to read.

The night was passing quickly. She finished reading the
letter and she and Aaron got into a discussion about what it might have meant
or what it really meant. They drank more coffee. She made a second carafe.
Aaron told stories about his aunt. He still had a hard time referring to her as
his mother. He and
Korie
laughed and cried at these
tales. As the night passed, Aaron eventually began to speak of her as his
mother.

“Hey, thanks,” said Aaron.

“Thanks?”

“Yeah, for looking after me tonight, and for listening to
me.”

“Hey, it’s okay.”

“What time is it anyway?”

Looking over Aaron’s shoulder, she glanced at the kitchen
wall clock. It pointed to
three forty
in the morning.

“Well, it’s almost a
quarter
to four
.”

“That late?”

“Yeah, look, I’ll make up the couch for you. It’s big and
comfortable.”

“That’s fine, I’ll help, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

Soon the couch was set up with a blanket to serve as a bed
sheet, and another to cover up with.
Korie
brought
Aaron a pillow from her bedroom.

Aaron was still a little wobbly, but he managed to organize
the couch into a suitable bed. He felt dryness in his mouth that he wanted to
get rid of. Too much wine followed by too much coffee had left his breath ten
ways past raunchy. After
Korie
used the bathroom, she
said goodnight to Aaron and headed straight to her own bedroom. Aaron went into
the bathroom and took some of her toothpaste and applied a generous amount to
his right index finger. He than applied the toothpaste vigorously to his teeth.
He then rinsed a couple of times. His mouth felt better. As he was about to
exit the bathroom, he noticed a small bottle of perfume sitting on the counter.
He picked it up. He didn’t recognize the name, but his nose quickly identified
the perfume as the same one he had noticed
Korie
wearing
at the restaurant earlier. He took a deep sniff and let the fragrance fill his
sense of smell. The odor was one which aroused a deeply sensuous reaction in
Aaron. His memory kicked in. He could see her standing over him, that first
moment, when she had approached his table.

Aaron left the bathroom and took a step towards
Korie’s
bedroom. He stopped and glanced down at the soft
light emanating from the bottom of her bedroom door.

Don’t be a jerk,
he thought.
She’s just a nice
person who helped you out.

He shook his head slowly as he headed back over to the couch.
He took off his sports jacket, folded it and laid it across the back of a
wooden rocker, which shared the room with the couch. He then took off his
shoes, leaving his socks on. He next took off his sports shirt and pants and
carefully folded them as well, laying them over his sports coat. He climbed
onto the couch and in a few moments he had fallen deep asleep.

Meanwhile in
Korie’s
bedroom, she
was lying in bed and couldn’t fall asleep.

Had he approached her bedroom door earlier? Was he
thinking of her? Did he find her attractive? What would she have done if he had
come into her bedroom?
These thoughts swirled inside her mind.

Finally,
how do you feel about him
Korie
?
she thought.

There was no clear answer. With that she reached over to the
small nightstand light and turned it off. Sleep came moments later.

Aaron dreamed of his mother Laura. She seemed to speak to him
in his dreams.

“Aaron, please stay away from Vermont.
Go far away. Change your name. Hide, they’re coming,” said his mother as she
looked over her shoulder. She was obviously frightened.

“Who’s coming?” said Aaron.

“The Keepers.”

Aaron seemed to reach out for his mother in his dream, but
the image soon faded away. Aaron drifted off to a deeper, dreamless sleep.

Korie
dreamed about Aaron’s mother
as well that night.